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Ma to personally monitor Tuesday recall vote

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) will visit the Legislative Yuan on Tuesday to monitor the vote on the recall motion against President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), KMT Spokeswoman Cheng Li-wen (鄭麗文) said yesterday.

Ma and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) will also hold a news conference to explain the party's stance after the presidential recall vote, she said.

Besides organizing two large rallies today and tomorrow in Kaohsiung and Taipei, the party will invite more than 5,000 supporters to gather outside the Legislative Yuan on Tuesday to display their support for the opposition's demand for Chen's ouster.

On the eve of the vote, Ma and party lawmakers will light "sky lanterns" in front of the Legislative Yuan to pray for the country and the public, Cheng said.

Despite the pan-blue camp's efforts to boot Chen out, the recall motion stands little chance of passing in the legislature as it requires a two-thirds majority vote.

People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) has repeatedly said that PFP lawmakers will seek to topple the Cabinet if the presidential recall vote fails at the Legislative Yuan in order to further pressure Chen to step down.

In response, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday that the party would support dissolving the legislature if the pan-blues tried to topple the Cabinet.

"Of course, [dissolving the legislature] would be bad for the DPP," Yu said, referring to the downsizing of the legislature from 250 seats to 113 seats in the next election.

"But it will also have a tremendous impact on the pan-blues -- they have a lot of money tied up in their legislative campaigns," he said.

Yu made the remarks at an event hosted by the Taipei Foreign Correspondents' Club, outlining his party's strategy for countering the opposition parties' efforts to recall Chen.

Yu said the pan-blues would not likely seek to topple the Cabinet because of fears that it could lead to premature legislative elections.

Instead, Ma and Soong would continue to focus the pan-blues' attention on the current presidential recall bill, even though they know it wouldn't pass, Yu said, adding that Ma is "panicking."

"Speculation that some DPP legislators will defect and vote in favor of the recall this Tuesday is pure propaganda," Yu added.

In related news, DPP lawmakers yesterday accused the KMT of inciting college students to launch a student movement to unseat Chen.

The DPP lawmakers urged the KMT to stop using students to attain its political goals.

DPP caucus whip Yeh Yi-ching (葉宜津) said the DPP caucus obtained information that the KMT was trying to use students from the National Taiwan University (NTU) to launch a student movement aimed at asking the president to step down and that these students would stage a sit-in protest for more than 80 hours.

KMT Legislator Lin Yi-shih (林益世), who is also the chief of the KMT's Youth Corps, claimed that no movement conducted by university students could be "maneuvered" by any individual or political party.

Lin told the DPP caucus not to "intimidate" the students.

Additional reporting by CNA
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